It struck me as odd when The Verge, one of the more prominent ‘modern’ online tech publications, ran an op-ed by Elizabeth Lopatto, outlining an apparent battle of sorts between a freelancer for The New Yorker and the Audubon Society. The topic? Animal advocacy and climate change—neither one directly related to technology.
Since The Verge’s inception in 2011, when a bunch of Engadget guys left that AOL-owned publication and struck out on their own, it has not been afraid to report on issues that are only mildly—if at all—related to the status quo of technology reporting such as Apple, Google, Amazon, and the like.
Their /about-the-verge/ page says as much:
[The Verge] covers the intersection of technology, science, art, and culture [emphasis added].
If their ‘mission statement’ of sorts seems rather ambiguous, that’s because it is. I have been following the site since 2012, and over the past three years, the content on the site has focused increasingly more on culture, compared to the other three topics listed in their mission statement. And there’s nothing wrong with that. The hip and ‘responsive design’-ed technology blog / site corner of the web has become terribly crowded in the past few years. There are only so many stores one can read about the next iPhone.
As an aside, consider my RSS subscriptions. In my so-called “Favorites” folder, created by me to contain the absolute most important authors I follow, it takes no less than seven blogs to satisfy my desire for tech opinions.
This doesn’t even include the technology sites I follow in RSS/Twitter[1]
Some URL slug sneakery on the part of yours truly shows for the past few years, The Verge has dedicated around one article per month to animals.
It is hard to know whether this latest tag=animals entry is more of the same, or if it is something special. Perhaps it is the fervor Lopatto dedicates to lambasting Franzen? Or maybe it is the apparent [pattern of] egregiousness of Franzen himself, which Lopatto alludes to by calling his “yet another ill-considered piece”? Or, could it be because this is the first time typical Verge readers like me have been privy to the Audubon being most decidedly … awesome?[2]
Whichever the reason, here’s my take:
- Franzen seems like a guy who can write well
- Franzen really does seem to have an axe to grind
- The Audubon don’t play that
Which, admittedly, are kept to an absolute minimum. This is in an effort to avoid the issues that come with following several of the same types of publications simultaneously: tons of duplicate articles from different publications about the same topic. That gets old. ↩
I hate using this word, but I honestly can’t think of a better, non-profane way to describe Audubon’s “sick burns,” as the author notes. ↩